FCC Chairman visits Barton Health, praises Telemedicine program

The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Julius Genachowski, and Wireline Competition Bureau Deputy Chief, Carol Mattey, visited Barton Memorial Hospital in South Lake Tahoe on Monday, July 30.
Genachowski and his team arrived at Barton to observe best practices in telemedicine and how Barton has implemented and utilized funds from the FCC for the Rural Health Care Pilot Program through their telehealth program.

The visit began with brief introductions of nearly 30 attendees, including: Barton Health administration, California Hospital Association, California Telehealth Network (CTN), Access El Dorado (ACCEL), AT&T and Telemedicine.com. Ann Truscott, Barton Telemedicine Coordinator gave a brief and informative presentation to the chairman and the group, followed by a question and answer session. The chairman also participated in a “mock” consultation with a physician located at UC San Diego through a telehealth video monitor.

“I think these types of site visits are very important to better inform our Washington D.C. policy makers how current Federal funding is being utilized and provide them input on  how Federal resources can be improved,” Eric Brown, CEO of CTN stated. “Chairman Genachowski's visit was very effective in this regard and on behalf of the CTN Board I really want to thank the entire Barton team for taking the time to make the Chairman’s visit a big success.”

Barton Health has made significant progress in telemedicine, while providing patients access to specialties such as cardiology, endocrinology, infectious disease, dermatology, adult psychiatry and neurology at Barton Memorial Hospital, Barton Community Clinic, Barton Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, Urgent Care and Family Practice. By providing these specialties to patients via telehealth, the healthcare system has provided an average of 75 patients a month, cost and time-effective, alternatives to seeing physicians outside of the Basin.

“Through Barton’s telehealth equipment, and with its CTN connection, local patients can “visit specialists” from their local doctor’s office, without the need for travel,” Barton Board of Directors, Urgent Care Physician and ACCEL Physician Champion, Dr. Gregory Bergner said. “Although not all health visits can be accomplished using telehealth, many can, and the time saved, along with the improved efficiency, and the cost savings is wonderful.”
Ann Truscott, Telemedicine Coordinator mentioned in her presentation, that a large benefit to patients is that it can save them time and money in receiving care that they need, right in their home environment by eliminating travel expenses to urban areas for care.

In August 2011, ACCEL received more than $300,000 worth of telemedicine equipment across five-agencies. Barton was chosen as the lead agency partner for ACCEL and received three telemedicine carts, as well as a dual monitor computer to support its telehealth efforts.

The network is a separate, off-internet, statewide broadband pipe dedicated to healthcare purposes. The CTN network is optimized to allow the upload of Blu-Ray quality video, with guaranteed transmission speeds not available on the commercial internet. It also facilitates the back and forth communication and secure transfer of electronic medical records.

CTN is the product of an unprecedented statewide coalition of healthcare, technology, government, and other stakeholders which was funded by the FCC. Under the FCC’s rural pilot program – with the goal of significantly increasing access to acute-specialty-care, and even primary and preventive healthcare in rural America – the FCC provided nearly $22.1 million over three years. Additional funds for the CTN have been provided by the California Emerging Technology Fund, and UnitedHealth/PacifiCare. Barton Health is one of three ACCEL sites currently connected to the CTN.

Using a multi-disciplinary leadership group called the “Telehealth for Tahoe Task Force” to guide and advance its telehealth efforts, Barton hopes to export specialty services to distant medical facilities, and further expand access to additional specialties, improving healthcare for its patients.
"You are making a powerful contribution to harness the power of technology in providing healthcare," said Julius Genachowski, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.